Coen Bros announce Clooney comedy.

The Coen brothers have announced their next film is to be a comedy starring George Clooney as a Hollywood fixer.

Hail Caesar will be set in the 1950s and star George as a character called Eddie Mannix, Deadline reported.

Mannix is employed by film studios to protect Hollywood stars' squeaky clean images by carrying out damage control to hide any dirty secrets.

It is not known if the character is based the real-life Eddie Mannix, who worked for MGM studios. His wife had an affair with the actor George Reeves, and Reeves was found with a gunshot wound to the head which was ruled as suicide, but questions have always surrounded his death.

The film will mark the fourth collaboration between George and Joel and Ethan Coen following O Brother, Where Art Thou? Intolerable Cruelty and Burn After Reading.

The Coen brothers last film Inside Llewyn Davis, set in the New York folk music scene, won critical acclaim and award nominations.